Stigter Van Doesburg is proud to present the first solo exhibition of
Lucas Lenglet at the gallery. No man is
an island is focussed around fear of the other. All works are an effort to expel
that what we see as being different. They make use of the strategy of
repetition to undo the parts of which they are composed of from their literal
meaning in order to create a more metaphorical one. Most of the works are based
on found elements that relate to the other. Newspapers, bells, telephone books…
Basic things to communicate, but nowadays they look quite archaic. In our
digital era Lenglet is using them on purpose: sometimes the past says more about
the present than the present does. On the verge of being displaced, but at the
same time they have hinted towards timelessness.

The works at the gallery are based on repetition in such a way that the
original meaning is fading. What does a horseshoe tell you about luck when you
see eighty-eight of them hanging in a grid? Also the work ‘Body (FD)’ and ‘Body (NRC)’ are
far out from their original function. Lenglet used different newspaper
clippings and placed them underneath each other. In this way only fragments are
visible and no coherent story can be read. The hopelessness of all information
that is coming daily to us covered as minimalist aesthetics.

The works at the gallery relate
to Lenglets older works in the way that they are still based on accessibility,
on thought about inclusion and exclusion. For the work ‘Others’ Lenglet framed
twelve books with photos of ethnographical portraits as one piece. Faces from
Oceania, Indo Chine and South America are looking at us from behind the glass.
The idea that you can’t turn the pages anymore, makes them even more the others
than they already are.

Fear of the other is an actual
issue in today’s society. No man is an island questions social interaction as
such. Will the others stay the others, no matter what art can do? Despite the
title, we might stay individuals thinking about the others while watching one
of Lenglet’s compelling works.